Panelists Want Candidates To Tell of Faith's Leadings

Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer

Published 4:00 am, Wednesday, August 16, 2000

2000-08-16 04:00:00 PDT Los Angeles -- Even before Al Gore chose an Orthodox Jewish running mate or George W. Bush identified Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher, Campaign 2000 was destined to be a crusade rife with religious rhetoric.

Now, as the Democrats prepare to anoint the Gore-Lieberman ticket, some harder questions are being asked about the uses and abuses of God, Jesus and Judaism by both political parties in the battle for the White House.

"This has nothing to do with God and everything to do with politics,'' said conservative Christian commentator Cal Thomas, a onetime spokesman for the Rev. Jerry Falwell. "We are not electing a rabbi any more than we are electing an evangelical. We are electing someone on the basis on their policies."

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While the panelists differed over which political party can best lead the country, they agreed that it's time for the major candidates to move beyond spiritual sound bites and talk about how their religious faith informs their political conscience.

"To what purpose should we put all our prosperity?" said Jim Wallis, a left-leaning evangelical and chief organizer of the Call to Renewal, a coalition of churches working to overcome poverty. "That should be the hot topic at both conventions when we live in a country where one in five kids are still living in poverty. Our moral underpinnings are in total disarray."

Several of the speakers noted that over the past eight years, President Clinton and the Democratic Party have made "faith" and "family" key components of their historic shift to the political center.

Prayer, piety and God-talk are no longer exclusive properties of the GOP, TV evangelists and other Christian Right leaders who shared the Republican spotlight during the Bush and Reagan presidencies.

The debate over religion and politics is no longer cast as a battle between secularists and people of faith, but instead around the question of how spiritual values can best be cultivated in American society. It's more a debate over which religious vision should prevail -- one that emphasizes personal piety and sexual restraint, or one that encourages tolerance and a more equal distribution of wealth.

"It's turning into 'My God can beat up your God,' " said Thomas. "God was mentioned 13 times in Nashville last week when Gore introduced (Sen. Joe) Lieberman -- once by Gore and 12 times by Lieberman."

Last year, in his book, "Blinded by Might: Can the Religious Right Save America," Thomas accused Falwell and other Christian Right leaders of being "seduced by the siren song of temporal political power," and of failing miserably in their campaign to redeem the country via electoral politics.

Now, Thomas said, the Democrats may be following suit with their selection of Lieberman, whose Orthodox Jewish faith and early condemnation of Clinton's personal failings are seen as valuable assets for a Democratic ticket trying to distance itself from the sin and sleaze of the Monica Lewinsky affair.

Like the Republicans before them, the Democrats are "seeking to enlist the Creator as a campaign surrogate," Thomas said.

Panelist Steven Waldman, editor in chief of the religion Web site "Beliefnet.com," which co-sponsored yesterday's discussion, had another spin. "Lieberman's strength is not that he's Jewish -- it's that he's prudish."

Now that he's on the ticket, Waldman and Thomas said it will be interesting to see if Lieberman backs away from his critique of sex and violence in Hollywood, and his qualified support for government vouchers for religious schools. Democrats rely heavily on donations from the entertainment industry, while many Jewish organizations oppose private school vouchers.

Another church-state issue to watch is the expanding role of religious organizations as tax-supported social service providers.

Clinton's embrace of the landmark welfare reform bill of 1996 ushered in the era of "charitable choice," which greatly expanded federal subsidies flowing to churches and other faith groups offering job training, child care and other assistance for people making the welfare-to-work transition.

"Charitable choice," which loosened restrictions on evangelism by federally funded religious organizations providing social service, has been strongly endorsed by both the Gore and Bush campaigns.

At the same time, Rogers said she worries about charitable choice resulting in the "government advancing religion, which is unconstitutional."

Wallis, the editor of Sojourners magazine, supports charitable choice but agrees that church groups accepting government money must remain vigilant about becoming pawns of the state.

"There is a danger with charitable choice that religious leaders may become 'service providers,' not prophetic interrogators of those in power," he said. "We must retain our prophetic integrity."

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